A blog that deals with the Adelaide to Melbourne main railway line, both in prototype and to modelling Horsham.

Dimboola

Dimboola station. This great photo was taken by my son Craig

Sunday, 18 October 2015

Norfolk Pine crafting

Horsham Station is dominated by a large Norfolk Pine tree at the eastern end of the station, in a garden area. Having searched the model tree world, nothing came close, so began the saga of producing the tree.

I started with a pine dowel trunk, originally carved for an S scale pine tree, so this a cut to an approximate size and further carved. Next come the branches. A quick study of prototype trees showed they have branches coming out from the trunk with a few smaller branches at the ends, on which the 'leaves' are formed. These were made from twisted wire, and lots of them!

Thin wires being twisted for branches.

Branches being added.

These were then planted into the trunk, after a many a hole was drilled. Next step, was to cover all the branches with No More Gaps. The trunk and branches were then brush painted with a matt brown paint, then very lighting over sprayed with silver.

Tree covered in No More Gaps

Tree in place, in the garden, also been modeled.

The adding of the 'leaves' was the next problem. The tree stayed leaf less for some time, as the leaves are thick needle like, only on the top of the end of the branches. Finally I decided to spray glue the outer parts of the branches, then use static fibers for the leaves. This worked quite well, but I thought I had stuffed it, when the whole tree turned green. Luck had it, most of them were excess and a good blow removed them. I think I will need to add another layer of longer green fibers. to bulk up its appearance. Does not quite look like the real thing, but it is getting there: really, I just want a model tree that looks like a Norfolk Pine. One thing I had not realised was that the real tree is actually a twin: that is, it has two trunks from about a third of the way up.

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About Me

Hello, and thanks for visiting my blog. Living in South Australia and modelling Victorian Railways at Horsham (in HO scale); about four hours plus away by road, is interesting.
I also enjoy the railways across the ditch in New Zealand, and modelling NZR in Sn 3 1/2.
Always on the lookout for information on modelling.